Tactically frustrating, yet again. Trent, young as he is, has been found wanting, out of position, on numerous times this season, and yet he still keeps making the same mistakes. What work is being done on the training ground to eliminate these mistakes?
Why were we set up the way we were to deal with Lukaku? Either we play Van Dijk up against him, and have Matip as the 'spare man', or if we're going to leave Van Dijk spare, then Klavan has to have the job of man marking Lukaku, as he out of the three (him, Lovren and Matip) is less likely to get man handled in the way Lovren was, and does get.
We were far too open first half and especially for the goals. Simple long balls, knock-ons etc. Why are we still struggling with them? When Lukaku drops deeper for a flick on, if we have Can (the strongest in the air of the midfielders) drop in in front of Lukaku, with Lovren in behind, it makes it harder for Lukaku to have a clear sight of the flight of balls knocked forward in the air.
With the second goal, Trent has to stay out wide on his man, with Can dropping into the space that Trent had got sucked into. Trent needs to show Rashford down the outside, rather than let him cut in, and if he fails to do that, then Can is there in the space that either Rashford will make for, or if he lays the ball off inside, that space is the area the recipient of the lay off will make for.
Whilst it would have been nice to win, we needed to make sure that the Mancs didn't extend their points lead over us. That was the prime objective on Saturday.
Mourinho understands that sometimes you have to stiffle the game, sometimes settling for avoiding defeat, as part of the bigger picture, and how any individual game fits into it. Yet again, a Mourinho team playing against us, looks far better drilled, more practised, more accomplished, and we look naive.
